Page 81 of Blood Oath
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I scowl, picking it up to try to figure out how to turn off the vibration. I can never figure out phones.
The notification came from an email from Everbound University about the upcoming Matched Ball that takes place after First Placement. It’s a big formal event that Kenzie has been ecstatic about.
I go to close out of it, but something in the email catches my eye. I quickly skim.
…our esteemed headmaster, Professor Hearst, has arrived back at Everbound and will deliver an address preceding First Placement to congratulate all legacies who have survived their first semester at Everbound University thus far.
The headmaster has returned.
Finally, some good news.
I just have to get through the next day without getting too attached to these assholes, and then I can get on with my mission. Clearly, getting them to hate me is hitting too many snags.
So maybe after I finish my mission here, I should just run. Never see them again.
No matter how that makes me feel.
24
CRYPT
“You want to tell us what the fuck is up your ass?” Decimus growls as soon as Maven is out of earshot, turning on Frost, who still sits at the dining room table.
The ice elemental sighs like he’s resigned that his peaceful dinner is over and stands to face the rest of us. “You told me to be here. I’m here. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it, and she’s too smart to buy any fake niceties I toss her way anyway.”
Crane snaps at him about something else, and it leads to an argument that gets bigger and louder, but I don’t join their little spat, content to sit back and watch. We all have such different auras, so it’s no wonder we never meshed well as children like Maven was asking about.
Though I admit, I’m curious why Frost’s aura is so soft compared to how icy and arrogant he has always acted. Of the three of them, he was the one I minded the least when we were younger, but he purposefully distanced himself at every chance. I suppose he’s doing the same thing now with Maven.
I’m snapped out of my musings when Frost says something accusatory, and Decimus snaps, “I didn’t fucking pressure her. She wanted to touch me, and it just…escalated.”
Crane straightens, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean, escalated? Did you fuck her?”
“No. She just…” Decimus rubs a hand over the back of his neck and looks uncharacteristically flustered. “She started teasing me, touching me, and I lost control. Came like a fucking geyser. And then…” He shakes his head again. “It wasn’t sex. It’s not like I won the wager. But I didn’t fucking pressure her like that. I just strong-armed her into spending time with us here?—“
“Hang on,” I interrupt, my jaw tightening. “She stroked you off?”
He scowls. “It was a lot more intimate than you’re making it?—“
“I don’t give a damn. My question is, did you get her off? Or did you take and give nothing in return?”
He grimaces. I can tell I’m not the only one that pisses off when Frost sneers, “And you’re mad at me for not making progress with her? You’re a dick, using her like that.”
Decimus’s temper flares. “I didn’t use her. I wanted her to use me. She had me promise not to touch her—how the hell was I supposed to return the favor? And I was already way too damn close to snapping and fucking her rough and raw. I wasn’t about to let her first time be with me out of control!”
Crane hesitates. “Maven is a virgin?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Decimus grunts, dropping into one of the island stools and rubbing his face. “She wouldn’t tell me. But come on, what are the chances she’s hopped into anyone else’s sheets when she hates skin contact?”
Immediately, my thoughts skip back to Maven’s dark eyes holding mine as she kissed the dragon shifter earlier. The way she was trying to provoke me. My cock hardens as I imagine what it would have been like for her to taunt me more, holding my gaze while her fingers trailed over someone else, driving me mad with need.
She didn’t seem to hate skin contact when she wasn’t solely focused on it.
“I have to wonder if that’s one of her acts, too,” Crane muses.
Frost looks at him sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“Our keeper has been fighting dirty.”
